Yahoo! Mail Classic Tutorials

Glossary

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | XYZ

A

  • ActiveX: a loosely defined set of technologies developed by Microsoft for sharing information among different applications. ActiveX is an outgrowth of two other Microsoft technologies called OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) and COM (Component Object Model).
  • Address Book: a listing of people and their email addresses associated with each Yahoo! Mail account.
  • AddressGuard: a feature of Yahoo! Mail Plus that allows you to create and use disposable email addresses.
  • Ascending order: from smallest to largest; for alphabetical sorting, from A to Z; for date sorting, from oldest to most recent.
  • Attachment: a separate file included as part of an email message, such as a multimedia or document file.

B

  • Base name: the first part of your disposable address, which is common to all the addresses you create using AddressGuard.
  • Blocked address: an email address or domain from which you never want to receive messages.
  • Bulk folder: a permanent folder that SpamGuard or SpamGuard Plus uses to hold messages it identifies as spam.

C

  • Case-sensitive: lower and uppercase letters are not treated the same; for example, "a" is not the same as "A".
  • Category: a group of contacts in your Yahoo! Address Book. Categories let you send the same email to a group of people and let you organize information by groups.
  • Compose: to enter the text of an email message.
  • Compose page: the page in Yahoo! Mail where you address, write, and send email messages.
  • Condition: the part of a filter that defines what constitutes a matching message.
  • Contact: a person with whom you interact; someone to whom you might want to send an email or instant message.

D

  • Descending order: from largest to smallest; for alphabetical sorting, from Z to A; for date sorting, from most recent to oldest.
  • Disposable email address: a customized email address that you create using AddressGuard to protect your regular Yahoo! Mail Plus address.
  • Domain: a set of Internet addresses, such as for a web site or email. On the Web, a domain is the part after "www." such as "my-domain.com".
  • Download: to transfer a file from a remote computer to your computer.
  • Draft: an unfinished version of an email message that you save in the Drafts folder to complete and send later.

E

  • Email address: A contact's address that identifies an electronic location where email can be sent. An email address includes the contact's email name followed by the "@" followed by the contact's email domain, such as "person@domain.com".
  • Email domain: a set of Internet addresses, such as for a web site or email. In email addresses, a domain is the part after the "@", such as "my-domain.com".
  • External email account: an email account that uses a mail server other than the Yahoo! Mail server.

F

  • Filter: a rule Yahoo! Mail uses to direct an incoming message to a particular folder.
  • Folder: a container in Yahoo! Mail that holds email messages.
  • Forward: (two uses in Yahoo! Mail) to send an email message that you receive on to someone else or to configure Yahoo! Mail to send all email messages that come into your Yahoo! Mail Plus account to another email address. (Available to Yahoo! Mail Plus users only.)

I

  • Inbox: a folder where you receive incoming email.

J

  • Junk mail: unsolicited email on the Internet; also called spam.

K

  • Keyword: the unique, second part of a disposable address you create using AddressGuard.

L

  • List: a feature in earlier versions of Address Book that let you send an email message to a set of contacts. Now you can send email to a category instead of a list.

M

  • Mail server: an application that receives incoming email and forwards outgoing email for delivery. A computer dedicated to running such applications is also called a mail server.
  • Mailing list: a group of contacts to whom you want to send the same email message. In Yahoo! Mail, a category includes mailing list capability.
  • Message header: the information used to deliver an email message, including the To, From, Date, and Subject fields.
  • Mobile device: a wireless communication device for exchanging voice, text, and/or graphic information; includes pagers, mobile phones, web phones, pagers, two-way pagers, PDAs, and Internet appliances.

N

  • Nickname: a shortcut to a person's email address.

P

  • PC-to-PC calling: the ability to call another person's computer from your computer; similar to placing a phone call. Both you and the person you are calling must have a Yahoo! ID and be logged into Yahoo! Messenger.
  • Permanent folder: a mail folder that's automatically created in a Yahoo! Mail account and can't be deleted.
  • Personal folder: a mail folder that you create.
  • PIM: a personal information management tool, such as your Yahoo! Address book, the Palm Pilot, and Microsoft Outlook.
  • POP3: Post Office Protocol 3, a standard client/server protocol for receiving email in which a mail server receives and holds email messages for you.

R

  • Reply: to respond to an email message you received.

S

  • Scan: the process of checking files to see if they contain known viruses.
  • Shortcut: underlined text in an email message that lets you act on the text. For example, you can click a phone number and add it to your Yahoo! Address Book or click a physical address and view a map of its location.
  • Snippet: a few lines of text from the body of an email message, displayed in search results.
  • Spam: unsolicited email on the Internet; also called junk mail.
  • Spammer: someone who sends spam.
  • Synchronize: to cause items in multiple locations to match exactly.

T

  • Text messaging: a feature that lets you receive text messages on a mobile device.
  • Thumbnail: a small version of an image, often linked to a larger version.
  • Training history: the information that SpamGuard Plus collects about the messages that a user considers spam and not spam.
  • Trash folder: the folder into which Yahoo! Mail moves all deleted email messages.

V

  • Virus: a computer program that attaches itself to other programs and causes harm to computer software, data, and/or hardware, often undetected until it is too late.

W

  • Web-based mail client: a program (usually a web site) that any computer with an Internet connection and a web browser can use to access the mail server.

XYZ

  • Yahoo! Briefcase: a tool that lets you store files online and then access them from anywhere using a browser.
  • Yahoo! ID: the name by which a person is known to all Yahoo! networks.
  • Yahoo! Mail Plus: a fee-based, advertisement-free version of Yahoo! Mail that provides additional online protection features, control, and storage.
  • Yahoo! Messenger: a web-based tool that lets you communicate using your voice, text, or other means with one or more people over the Internet in real time (instantly); text-based messages are sometimes referred to as "instant messenger" or "IM".
  • Yahoo! Toolbar: a free, customizable toolbar that lets you use your favorite Yahoo! features from handy buttons on your browser.